Wii launch ad draws series of complaints over violence

The launch advertising campaign for Nintendo’s Wii games console has triggered at least seven complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds of excessive violence.

It is unclear which ads the viewers are complaining about, but one ad is thought to show a man having his head blown off and another includes scenes using a samurai sword. The ASA is considering whether to investigate the campaign.

The regulator is also considering whether to investigate a complaint about a cross-track poster campaign for the Ile de France Regional Committee of Tourism.

The poster, running in London Underground stations, shows a group of people with bloody stumps instead of heads dancing in a hall of mirrors at the palace of Versailles. The strapline says visitors to Versailles will be “treated like royalty”.

Meanwhile, the ASA has rapped film distributor Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment over a TV ad for horror film Silent Hill after 21 complaints about excessive violence. The ad included scenes from the film such as a shot of a woman having her throat cut.

The ad agency, Creative Partnerships, said it had followed BACC advice, which resulted in the ad being given a post 9pm restriction. The agency also said it had made a lot of TV ads for horror films and DVDs and thought it had a good understanding of what was suitable. It also claimed that the Silent Hill ad was much less graphic than other ads it made for showing after 11pm.

But the ASA ruled that the ad would cause offence to many viewers, even after 9pm, and said it should have been limited it to much later in the evening when it was less likely to cause offence.